Hearne: Star Drops Pre Holiday Layoffs Bomb on News Staff

A scant two weeks before Christmas and the Grim Reapers at 18th and Grand are up to their old tricks. As in laying off staff right before America’s Holiday.

“MEMO TO: Co-workers,” the internal notice begins.

“FROM: Mi-Ai Parrish.

“RE: Reduction in force

“As we continue to be challenged by uncertain economic news, I have decided to restructure and realign some pieces of the business, eliminating several positions, as well as some open positions.

“The employees affected by the reductions have been notified.”

The name that jumps out in the early returns is Star librarian Eric Winkler.

I can tell you from my own experience that Winkler is one of the most popular, helpful staffers at 18th and Grand. Just like newsroom IT Chase Clements was when he took a bullet in the newspaper’s September bloodletting.

Clements however must have kickass juju because three weeks later the Star‘s parent company McClatchy snapped him up, reportedly with a tidy raise.

Would that Winkler will be so lucky – he certainly deserves it.

“He’s very good at helping people find things,” says one Star newsie. “He will find anything for anybody. I mean, he really should have gotten an award for what he did.

“Plus he’s married and has two young boys, like in the first or second grade. I’m not sure that his youngest may still be in kindergarten.”

Winkler was also a frequent contributor to the Northland Neighborhood News section.

No word at this point on who else made the hit list other than rumors that some production personnel may have been handed their walking papers.

As for the the ultra low morale that continues to pervade the newsroom, think of it as business as usual, the publisher says.

“Job eliminations are a tough reality, and they are a difficult step,” Parrish’s memo concludes. “As we continue to restructure and strategically reinvent our operation for our future, your efforts are vital. Please ask me or any member of the senior team if you have questions.”

Translation: I don’t actually work with you but want you to feel that way. I was your buddy last week when I gave you a Christmas ornament. Remember the real Christmas gifts they used to give? Yeah, me neither.

FROM: Mi-Ai Parrish.

Translation: From your buds in Sacramento who are calling all the shots now. All of them.

RE: Reduction in force

Translation: Don’t refer to them as layoffs or firings in my presence, please.

As we continue to be challenged by uncertain economic news,

Translation: The economy is getting better for every business in the area but us.

I have decided

Translation: Sacramento has decided

to restructure and realign some pieces of the business, eliminating several positions, as well as some open positions.

Translation: I’m a horrible manager and in way over my head. Also, the big VP Christmas Party? All that food and booze costs money, especially if Fannin shows up. But it’s still on at Pierpont’s.

The employees affected by the reductions have been notified.

Translation: Merry Christmas.

Job eliminations are a tough reality, and they are a difficult step

Translation: But they’ll keep continuing, since that’s what corporate wants

As we continue to restructure and strategically reinvent our operation for the future

As what’s his name (I can’t quite remember – Harvey somebody?) famously exclaimed in the movie Network a number of years ago, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” I mean, when is the blood-letting going to cease down at 18th & Grand? When is Corporate going to quit making The Star pay for the shortcomings of some of the other papers in the McClatchy chain? Like I wrote in my tribute to my father, he and the other guys and gals of the Greatest Generation era were most fortunate to be working at The Star when they did. They retired just in the nick of time, getting in on the last years of what has to be rightfully regarded as “the good old days” of American journalism. Suffice it to say, then, that my heart sure goes out to those who are being expelled from Mr. Nelson’s “castle” at this time, especially since we’re basically just two weeks away from Christmas.

Well, sadly the blood letting is likely to continue for some time. At least until the transition from print – where the ad revenues are primarily – to online, where the pickings are slim.

There were five to six people in the Star library when I started in the early 90s. Now they’re down to one, a part timer no less. Derek Donovan now heads the library with nobody underneath him and treats it as a part time job having replaced the full time readers rep position and writing entertainment stories for INK and the Star.

1. The minute that first plane hit the WTC in 2001… America entered gradual austerity.. But not The Star… In 2006 they opened a giant albatross printing facility with reported 5 figure panes of glass.
2. Somehow, The Star decided that unloading talent was smarter than figuring out how to deliver the talented product in our changing e-world. Much smaller papers were way ahead of The Star in electronic format.
3. The best talent there was unloaded. The theatre actors can still act in the movies folks. The Star did not seem to get that.
4. Nothing wrong with being liberal… but geez. We get that a big city paper will be liberal… Hey.. I am liberal… but they never seemed to even it out.. or even try.
5. If they had a good product people would pay for it electronically. The Des Moines Register makes this paper look like a church bulletin.

The real question is whether Price Chopper will be advertising a huge truckload beef sale in the Wednesday food section in conjunction with the “don’t eat the beef” bonanza the last few days in the Star…. based on Sundays story a prime cut from Price Chopper, Hen House, Sun-fresh or anywhere could land one with a colostamy bag and a fragile lawsuit…. too bad there are not suburbans for these food giants to turn to for advertising. Had they supported the suburbans before they would have had reasonable choices….. now they can pay high prices and be trashed in the “A” section of the paper….

I doubt they were some of the best newspapers if his default editorial judgment is the cowardly stance he espouses above. The Star is in many ways a decaying mess, but give them credit for trying occasionally to aim high and rake the muck that no one else will go near.

Say what you will about her methodology and fragile state of mind, Smith’s hard working, one of the biggest contributors to the Star’s business section and one of the last links to the everyday goings on around Kansas City

This train is off the track, hurtling through debris as it has tipped on its side, has caught fire, and apparently some of the passengers still aboard seem to think it will right itself, douse the fire, and jump back on the track.

Did they get rid of Mary Sanchez yet? You know, that smug columinst who recently wrote that we are exagerating about the student loan debt crisis. I haven’t read such crass remarks since her other Latina smug counterpart, Maria Antonia at KMBC. And BTW, I am married to a Latina! These arrogant, “liberal”, bitter females better stop prosthelytizing and actually fact check their pieces before writing polarizing slants that induce attention.